Chapter 9 Show Me the Bones

Chapter 9

Show Me the Bones

Gator ran the checklist from the left seat while I watched from the right. He never missed an item, and the Pratt and Whitney PT6 turbine whistled to life. The enormous propeller followed and spun up to speed in seconds as the engine converted jet fuel into jet noise. My feet hovered over the rudder pedals just in case our junior pilot needed a gentle correction, but my concerns were wasted. He flew the airplane as precisely as I would’ve as we climbed out over Lake Pontchartrain and made our turn to the southwest.

The concentration on his face soon gave way to aeronautical euphoria. “I could get used to power like this.”

“Just wait ’til you strap on the P-Fifty-One. That’s real power.”

He chuckled. “I’m a long way from ready for the Mustang.”

“You’re closer than you think. When this is over, we’ll get you finished up in the One-Eighty-Two and move on to bigger and better things. It’ll be nice to have another pilot on board.”

He let the idea of learning to fly our fleet of magic carpets wash over him for a moment, but he didn’t dwell on the idea. It pleased me to see him refocus and ask, “Are you bringing in the whole team?”

“I’m not sure yet. What are you thinking?”

He scoffed. “What difference does it make what I think?”

“You’re second-in-command.”

He chuckled. “That’s because there are only two of us.”

“Still, I want your opinion.”

He scanned the panel, ensuring everything was in order while his brain converted his thoughts into words. “I think we need to see the bones. If all of this is in that old man’s imagination, there’s no reason to spend the money to fly the rest of the team in. Maybe he’s just going senile, and all that voodoo stuff is starting to feel real to him. If that’s the case, there’s nothing we can do to help him.”

“What if he’s telling the truth?”

Gator scratched his beard. “If he’s telling the truth and Flambeau Exploration is somehow involved, that’s a matter for the police and not a bunch of steely-eyed knuckle-draggers.”

“Steely-eyed?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It just sounded cool in my head.”

“Steely-eyed…I like it.”

Gator’s landing at Houma wasn’t perfect, but all of the big pieces stayed on the airplane, and any landing is a good landing if you can use the airplane again.

Gator drove our rented truck back to Kenneth LePine’s camper, but I beat him there by almost an hour. When he pulled up, he ambled across the sandy ground and joined Kenneth and me under the shade of a lean-to beside an outbuilding that looked even worse than the old man’s so-called house.

“Where you been, you? We’s been looking all ’round for you.”

Gator grinned and took a seat on an overturned bucket. “I’ve been doing a little sightseeing and trying to avoid rush hour.”

Kenneth cackled. “You is sho’nuff a mess, boy. Your big brother here tells me you’s learnin’ to fly that big ol’ airplane. Do that be the truth?”

He tossed a pebble at my boot. “My brother is a pretty good teacher.”

Kenneth said, “Dat ain’t all he be tellin’ me, no. He say you wanna see dem bones o’ dem parts I done burnt up, me.”

Gator scratched a circle in the sand with a small stick. “Yes, sir. I’d like to take a look. Are they close by?”

Kenneth stared at Gator for a long moment until my partner finally made eye contact. “Don’t you know a man look another man in the eye when he accuse him o’ lying, you?”

On the football field, the all-American free safety from K-State could read a quarterback’s eyes from twenty yards away, but on his new battlefield, that perception wasn’t quite as astute. It was time to watch my protégé grow.

He sat up straight. “I’m not accusing you of lying, sir. I need to know how the bodies were dismembered, and the bones will tell that story.”

Kenneth stared through the man who was fifty years his junior as if daring him to look away. “E’rybody know you don’t burn bones together. Nobody need that gris-gris on himself, him. I show you dem bones, but you don’t put them back together, no. You hear?”

Gator leaned in. “What do you mean?”

Kenneth spat between his bare feet and turned to me. “This kid o’ yours sho’nuff got some learnin’ to do, him.”

I followed Gator’s lead and leaned in. “Teach us both.”

He threw up his hands. “This ol’ body ain’t nothin’ buts a box for a spirit. Once that box get torn up and thrown apart, it can’t never be brought back together, no, ’cause den dat box be wide open for wanderin’ spirits who be lookin’ for themselves a body for to be inside. Once dem bones is aparts, dey got to stay aparts, and dey ain’t no way ’round that. You hear me?”

Gator’s eyes said he was ready to write the old man off as a bona fide head case, but he held it together and said, “I guess I learned something today. Don’t worry, Mr. LePine. I won’t even touch the bones, let alone put them back together.”

Kenneth leapt to his feet, shoved Gator off his bucket, and roared with laughter. When he finally stopped, he pointed down at my partner lying on his back. “Ol’ Keef just be messin’ with you. Dem bones is just bones, boy. Get on up out dat dirt, and I show you where dey be.”

I pulled my partner to his feet, and he dusted himself off. He watched Kenneth walk away and said, “That guy’s either completely insane or the smartest person on Earth.”

I whispered, “I’m leaning toward option number two. Now, come on. Let’s go see dem bones, we.”

He shook his head. “I thought we agreed you weren’t going to do that anymore.”

“No, you agreed that I wasn’t going to do that anymore. I made no such agreement.”

When Kenneth returned from inside his shack, he led us around the structure and pulled a heavy canvas tarp from atop a contraption neither of us had noticed before that moment. When the tarp was fully removed, a gleaming, flat-bottom airboat with an enormous propeller appeared. He pulled three headsets from a locker beneath a seat and tossed one to each of us.

Before we slipped them on, Gator asked, “Have you ever done this before?”

I said, “What? Hunting burnt bones from dismembered bodies in a bayou? Sure… I’ve done it too many times to count.”

He gave me a shove and covered his ears.

Kenneth fired up the engine, cast off the lines, and hit the throttle. The boat accelerated across the black water doing at least fifty knots. There’s never been a carnival ride invented that’s more thrilling than the adventure Kenneth LePine took us on that day. We soared through waist-high grass and passages of water barely wide enough to accommodate the beam of the half boat, half flying machine beneath us.

Ten minutes into the joyride, Gator turned, pointed toward the driver’s seat, and then back to himself. Kenneth got the message and reduced the throttle until we were drifting across the bayou as slowly as the boat could move.

“Sure! Get up here. Ol’ Keef’ll shows you how.”

Gator climbed into the seat, took the controls in his hands, and we were soon racing across the swamp at breakneck speed. His turns weren’t as smooth as Kenneth’s, but the young operator obviously had the feel for the machine. Every time I looked back, Gator’s grin grew wider, and the engine grew a little louder. I can’t deny that I wanted to try my hand at flying the boat, but I wasn’t going to steal my partner’s thunder.

Kenneth directed with his hands until we came to a slough with a muddy beach at the end. He directed Gator in the beaching technique, and soon, we were resting on somewhat solid ground with the engine silent. We climbed over the bow and mucked our way through the slop until we came to an area that was surprisingly dry. There was even a patch of normal-looking grass. In the center of the grassy area stood a collection of rocks forming a circle. Each stone was stained black from countless fires through the years.

“What is this place?” Gator asked.

Kenneth said, “We calls it the camp. It be da only high ground in da whole parish. This be where all dem young folk come to get dey lovin’. It look to ol’ Keef like maybe Cecilia be wantin’ to bring you out here, maybe. What you tink of dat, you?”

“She’s a nice girl,” Gator said. “I wouldn’t—”

“She not no girl no more, boy. She a growed woman who need her a man who ain’t no coonass. She don’t gots no business wasting her life down here in da bayou, her. She need her a good man to takes her outta here. You hears me?”

“How about the bones?” Gator said.

Kenneth shook a finger at him. “You not foolin’ ol’ Keef. I knows what you thinking inside dat head o’ yous.”

To my surprise, the old man stepped across the rocks and into the blackened ash of the fire pit. He dug with his hands like a dog excavating a well-hidden, favorite bone. As it turned out, that is exactly what he was doing. A few minutes later, his efforts produced half a dozen charred bones, and he laid them on the grass beside the rocks.

“Der dey be.”

“Is that all of them?” Gator asked.

“Dat’s all dey is here. I gots me one more place. I can show dat one to you, too.”

I knelt beside Gator, and we examined the bones carefully.

Gator touched the tip of one of the bones with his pen. “This looks like a femur.”

“It sure does,” I said, “but that’s not the interesting part.”

He rolled the other bones with his pen until we’d seen each one from every angle. Then, he glanced at Kenneth fifty feet away and back at me. “They’re not damaged. There’s no tool marks and no breaks.”

I whistled. “Hey, Mr. LePine. Come here for a minute if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t want to see dem things,” he called back.

I stood and closed the distance between us. “I understand. You don’t have to look at them again, but I’d like to ask a couple of questions if you wouldn’t mind.”

He nodded without a word, and I asked, “Did you say there was flesh on those bones before you burned them?”

“Dat’s right.”

“And you said the gators hadn’t eaten any of the flesh, right?”

He said, “They might have ate da part I didn’t find, but weren’t no teeth marks on dem.”

“This is a gruesome question, but did all of the body parts look like they came from the same body?”

He bowed his head. “No, weren’t the same person. It was at least five or four different peoples maybe. It ain’t right dat dey peoples don’t know what happen to dem. Dey prolly worried sick thinking ’bout where dey be at all dis time, dem.”

I said, “Why wouldn’t the alligators eat the flesh, Mr. LePine?”

He waved a hand around. “How many gators you see ’round here, huh?”

“I figure we scared them off with the airboat.”

“Gators ain’t ’fraid o’ no airboat. Dey ain’t smart enough to be ’fraid.”

“Then why don’t we see any?” I asked.

He dug at the grass with a bare toe. “You wouldn’t believe me if I tolds you.”

“Try me.”

“It be a rougarou. Dat be da onliest thing a gator be ’fraid of.”